Mark Murphy confirms league will consider PI review rule tweak

Posted by Josh Alper on May 21, 2019, 2:50 PM EDT

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NFL owners are meeting this week and a report last week indicated that they will consider allowing the Competition Committee to make a change to the new rule allowing for replay reviews of pass interference.

That rule was adopted at March’s league meetings after a strong push from coaches and allows for reviews of fouls that were called as well as ones that were missed during the play. It also called for the reviews to be handled the same way as all others, i.e. coaches would throw a challenge flag outside of the final two minutes of each half and reviews would be initiated from the booth at the end of halves.

Packers president and Competition Committee member Mark Murphy told Bob Glauber of Newsday that the owners will consider letting the rule be tweaked so that there would be no automatic booth reviews. Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones, another member of the Competition Committee, told PFT earlier this month that he didn’t anticipate any changes, but it appears the mood has shifted.

The change could limit reviews as coaches would be bound to having two challenges with the possibility of a third if they win both and only being able to use challenges if they have timeouts. There’s no cap on booth-initiated reviews, although Murphy noted leaving things to coaches only could lead to issues on Hail Marys as coaches might challenge in hopes of getting a call overturned in their favor.

“…leaving things to coaches only could lead to issues on Hail Marys as coaches might challenge in hopes of getting a call overturned in their favor.”

So the game would take longer to end, and you could have a penalty enforced on a play that is effectively a desperation attempt and it’ll change the entire outcome of the game? Especially with pass interference being very subjective and almost guaranteed to happen when 8 guys are all jockeying for the ball? Great…